


Phantom

by spiritualmachines



Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Divorce, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Parent Death, Present Tense, Sibling Love, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 10:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritualmachines/pseuds/spiritualmachines
Summary: Excerpt:“Can we please switch places?”





	Phantom

**Author's Note:**

> *This is from Zac's POV and is linked to another story from this challenge, [Grave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17201501). Although it isn't necessary, we strongly suggest that you read that story first, if you haven't done so already.

_August 2008_

He decided to go to his father's grave to ask his advice. 

He certainly isn’t the first person to kneel down before a loved one’s headstone for answers, or guidance, or anything remotely resembling peace, and he won’t be the last. But that knowledge doesn’t make him feel any less uncomfortable amidst this sprawling field of death. 

He isn’t just uneasy, though; he’s ashamed. Ashamed of how selfish and pitifully self-absorbed he’s been. Ashamed to own up to the fact that he hasn’t paid his late father a visit until now. Ashamed that it took something like _this_ for him to finally show up. 

_“I want to get divorced,” Kate said, her voice as measured and level as it always was, the tears hanging over her eyes like a veil, concealing her emotions._

He should have seen it coming, and yet, those five words had been salt in the open wound of life. As apathetic as he had become, he took so many things for granted, including his wife. He expected her to always be there, even though he was so rarely present for her. He had honored her request without a fight, but he couldn’t seem to ease the sting of loss and rejection. 

Maybe she’d been thinking about leaving him long before the accident, and his behavior over the last eight months gave her the final push to get out, to better her life and take her own steps toward happiness. He supposes that it doesn’t matter now; the end result is the same, anyway. Their marriage dissolved and now she’s back in Georgia where she can start over with a clean slate, far removed from his toxic thoughts and tendencies. As for him? Well, suffice it to say he no longer believes in second chances. He deserves to be alone forever. 

The late summer sun is far too bright and dazzling for his liking, especially on a day like today, so he closes his eyes against it and prays—not to God, but to the man stolen so cruelly away for reasons he can never hope to understand. The man who always helped him see the light when his own vision was compromised. 

"I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so fucking sorry for not saving you. I'm sorry for hurting Mom and letting everybody down. No one can bear to be around me anymore, and I don't blame them. Most days, I just want to die,” he admits, a few lonely tears sliding down the bridge of his nose and dropping to the ground almost frantically, as if not even they can stand to be near him any longer. 

“I’d do anything to give you your life back and be the one who’s trapped six feet under.” 

His voice is but a broken whisper as he stretches his tired body out across the lawn, wishing he could become one with it. Then he rests his cheek against the sunlit blades of grass, seeking solace in their velvety caress as the sadness pulses inside of him with startling consistency, as if it has taken the place of his heart.

“Can we please switch places?”

 *** * * * ***

The breeze ruffles his hair, causing strands of hair to tickle his tear-stained cheeks. A disembodied voice pulls at his consciousness and begs him to open his eyes.

"Zac?"

When he hears his name, he struggles to wake up. He has barely slept at all these last few months, and the insomnia finally caught up with him.

Cracking his eyelids open, he sees a figure standing over him, backed by a pristine white light. It is his father.

 _“Dad?!”_

As elated relief funnels through him, he wants to both weep and jump for joy. He scrambles to his feet and flings his arms around him, burying his head against his sturdy chest and vowing to never, ever lose him again.

"Zac," the voice repeats. 

Strong arms wrap around him and for the first time in months, he feels happy. He feels whole again. It was all a nightmare—a horrible, insufferable nightmare. But it’s over now.

"Zac, you're okay. It's all going to be okay. I've got you."

Suddenly, despite the permeating warmth of the sun overhead, he feels ice-cold. Seized by a paralyzing sense of loss—as if he’d regained feeling in a phantom limb only to look down and see that there was indeed a gaping hole where a necessary piece of him should be—his knees buckle and he collapses bonelessly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s too distressed to even make a sound.

The arms wind even more tightly around him, keeping him from falling to the ground. His hazy eyes focus, confirming what his heart already knew. It isn’t his father at all.

He feels his body being lowered to the grass once more as Taylor sinks down beside him, divesting himself of the burden of holding dead weight. Zac half-expects his brother to leave him there after causing such a scene, even in the relative privacy of a graveyard, but instead he scoots in even closer. Fingers run through his hair as Taylor hums rhythmically against his ear, singing an unknown yet soothingly familiar song. 

Before the world around him fades to black, he hears his brother chant a series of phrases in his thick and raspy tone, repeating them over and over again like verses of a prayer.

“I love you, Zac. You’re not alone. You’re never alone.”


End file.
